I have in my possession a copy of one of the most authoritative books ever written on Arctic sea ice, including a section on the warming of the Arctic. It is written by one of the pioneering researchers in Arctic sea ice, N.N Zubov, a Russian, who spent his career studying the Arctic region.

His observations of warming in the Arctic, which he described as not localized, but universal, are taken from his book entitled Arctic Ice. I have excerpted several pertinent passages, which I’m sure will convince you that warming of the Arctic can scarcely be denied:

1. Along with the fluctuations in ice abundance in each individual sea from year to year, in late years a most interesting phenomenon has been observed – a warming of the Arctic, as evidence by a gradual and universal decrease in ice abundance. The main evidence of this general warming of the Arctic are:

1. Receding of glaciers and “melting away” of islands….all the Greenland glaciers which descend into Northeast Bay and Disko Bay have been receding since approximately the beginning of the century. On Franz Joseph Land during recent years several islands have appeared as if broken in two. It turned out they had been connected up to that time by ice bridges. …I noted a great decrease in the size of (Jan Mayan and Spitzbergen) glaciers. Ahlman terms the rapid receding of the Spitzbergen glaciers “catastrophic”.

2. Rise of air temperature. (Over the last 20 years) the average temperature of the winter months has steadily increased…(in the last 10 years) in the whole Arctic sector from Greenland to Cape Chelyuskin there has not been a single (negative) anomaly of average annual and monthly winter temperatures, while the positive anomalies have been very high….

3. Rise in temperature of Atlantic water which enters the Arctic Basin…the temperature of surface water and of Gulf Stream water has steadily risen…

4. Decrease in ice abundance….15% to 20% (over 20 years)….In earlier times, polar ice often approached the shores of Iceland and interfered with fishing and navigation. For the past 25 years ice has not appeared in significant quantities.

5. Increase in speed of drift ice.

6. Change in cyclone routes. There is no doubt that the increase in air temperatures, increase in Atlantic water temperatures, intensification of ice drift, etc., are closely connected with an intensification of atmospheric circulation, and in particular with a change in cyclonic activity at high latitudes. Vize shows that Atlantic cyclones are now shifting considerably north, by several hundred km, from their courses in the period before the warming of the Arctic.

7. Biological signs of warming of the Arctic. …fish have ranged further and further to the north…cod in large quantities have appeared along the shores of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya…also mackerel, dolphin where formerly were not found…during recent years fishing has gradually shifted into the Arctic waters, and this unquestionably must be ascribed in considerable degree to the warming of these waters….many heat-loving bottom organisms are now found in regions these organisms were not found (30 years ago). Knipovich says: “ In a matter of fifteen years…there occurred a change…such as is usually associated with long geological intervals”.

8. Ship navigation. …a number of ship voyages (were made) which could hardly have been accomplished in the preceding cold period.

Still more remarkable is the fact that the warming of the Arctic is not confined to any particular region.

I find these observations to be quite compelling evidence that warming of the Arctic is indeed unprecedented. Who would dare deny it? Clearly, we must do something about our carbon dioxide emissions!!

NOTE: Oh, silly me. This book was written in the late 1930′s. Nevermind.

In short, more of the globe is becoming equable and habitable by humans. The frozen wastes are becoming smaller. New sea lanes are opening up. More natural resources are becoming available. The grain growing regions are expanding. Surely all this is an unqualified good for our species.

No, it is terrible for our species. Just ask SenseSeeker and the other Green Malthusian. They will tell you the truth. Humans are a parasite and must be eliminated. I just wish the Green Malthusians would eliminate themselves first, so that the rest of us can live and grow our economies.

Only the seriously deluded, utterly misguided and incredibly stupid see this as an opportunity. The consequences of the methane hydrates being released will change our planet beyond recognition, and the human race's current civilisation may not withstand what happens.

penny wise , pound foolish , the adage would well describe the salivating oil and gas companies and the littoral countries forgetting the fact that the gulf stream current which depends on the cold current from north going to the equator and the warm current from equator to poles will stop working which will mean ice age temparatures in europe and north america which will consume all the extra oil got from the artic shelf to heat their homes and offices .This is not counting the environmental disaster in terms of the unknown number of species which are going to be extinct

At last the figures are at hand,the observations made,results received.The Arctic is now going to receive the importance it had rightly deserved,i don't know why the authorities have inculcated the habit of acting so lately.Yet,not too late in this case,thankfully much can be even done now.
As,the sceptre of global warming once again seems to be haunting the northern region.The need of the hour is to ultimately curb the causing factor at grass root level,"The Population pressure on land resources"!

Population growth isn't the biggie any more. For the past 20 years, the number of new babies born has stayed constant at about 135 million per year. The world's population pyramid is duly rectangularising, and population growth is all set to slow down.

Dont worry, the fukashima radiation which is still falling from the sky during rain falls has ensured we dont have to worry about global warming. Radio-active waste has guaranteed the human races dna has been altered and made irepairable. In as little as 100 years our populations health will be a pharmaceutical companies wet dream.

A zany comment indeed,you shouldn't self suppose a quagmire state to a problem that threatens the survival of human race.Here you represented yourself as an extremist,no more than that.I suggest you renege on your words and bring out a better option than declaring earth as a necropolis for all.

Melting of the north pole will not raise the oceans at all, since that ice is already immersed. It is the ice on greenland and antarctica you need to worry about, because that is now on land and will melt into the sea....

The sooner New York is immersed, the sooner the looney U.S. socialists will lose one of their bastions. This will be good for the planet and good for us all. Pity about the Guggenheim, but thems the breaks.

Take 3 ice cubes out of your freezer. Put them in a glass. Fill the glass to the brim with water. Carefully set the glass down on a dry table. Come back in an hour and observe the water on the previously dry table.

Take 3 ice cubes out of your freezer. Put them in a glass. Fill the glass to the brim with water. Carefully set the glass down on a dry table. Come back in an hour and observe the water on the previously dry table.

But what if oil has nothing to do with the climate change. Are you dense mentally that you do not acknowledge that climate changes naturally? Are you a creationist? Remember that thing called evolution? Remember Darwin? Does oil cause the birds and bees to evolve too fast or something? Does oil cause all natural evolution to stop? You actually believe this BS religion called global warming from oil and CO2 is more powerful than natural evolution? Boy you really all gullible. What won't you believe in? If someone told you humans were responsible for gravity, would you believe too?

This article overlooks the fact that the permafrost will melt. Sure you will get access to minerals under it, but first you will get a planet destroying methane vent into the atmosphere.

It will becom cheaper to extract the resources, but with so many millions dead from catastrophic climate change this will surely dent demand and lower the selling price. Anyone wish to bet on which will fall faster; extractive cost reductions or demand reductions. If you really want to make a profit your customers need to be breathing something other than methane.

The melting of the sea-ice will not make the earth flatter but the melting of the Greenland ice-sheet - and in the longer term the ice-sheets in Antarctica - will make it rounder.
The sea-ice is rather like the ice in your G&T, where the melt does not increase the level of liquid in the glass. This effect was explained by Archimedes.
The melting of the ice-sheets will have two effects:
1. The weight of the ice will be removed from the poles - and melt water will distribute itself round the world increasing sea-level.
2. The masses of ice will no longer be pulling up the seas around it due to their gravitational pull: The ice-sheets are so massive that they has a significant pull on the seas around them.
Both effects mean that weight will be moved from the poles to the equator. More earthquakes will happen as the Earth is squeezed round the equator and released at the poles.
As the Earth is an oblate spheroid - flattened at the poles - this equatorial squeeze will make the Earth a bit rounder.
See Cicero: http://www.cicero.uio.no/fulltext/index.aspx?id=8912
and Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound

Drilling in the North Pole ice and seas will have near insurmountable challenges by the geography, and isolation and weather. There is 24 hours of darkness in the winter. Despite global warming, it will not be tropical Tahiti in the arctic. Water cold enough to kill within 10 minutes.
Workers will risk death more than Middle East Terror and Kidnapping. It may be easier to drill on the summit of Mt. Everest or salvage gold from the wreck of the Titanic.
One liter of used motor oil can contaminate one million liters of fresh water. And turn a square mile into a toxic waste site.
IT will be expensive and risky.
It is far easier to drive a small sensible electric hybrid car, walk and ride a bicycle.

Where do you get this stuff? One litre turning a square mile into a toxic waste site? The Macondo blowout released something in the order of 780 million litres of crude into the Gulf. Did 780 million square miles get turned into "a toxic waste site"? I'm going to have to go with no, since the surface area of Earth is only about 200 million square miles.

Oil workers have dealt with terrible weather in the North Sea, Alaska and elsewhere for decades, in water that is also cold enough to kill in a few minutes (just ask Leonardo DiCaprio). As far as isolation, it's hardly more isolated than many places currently being exploited, like much of Siberia, Sakhalin, or Norman Wells in Canada, and has the advantage of being accessible by sea (some of the year). I wouldn't expect polar exploration and production to be any more dangerous than existing projects, but you use a misleading comparison since despite there being many tens of thousands of oil workers in the middle east, very few have been killed by terrorism or kidnapping. Far more oil industry employees have been killed in accidents than malicious acts.

Developing the Arctic for oil and gas does have many risks. It will be expensive and pose yet to be properly addressed environmental challenges. But making it sound like a moon shot is wrong. The technological leap needed is far less than the one taken by the Europeans to develop the North Sea in the 70s, for example, or SAGD technology used in the Canadian oil sands in the late 90s. And while I do walk and ride a bicycle to many of the places I go, I am not naive enough to think the vast majority of North Americans find the idea remotely appealing.

Oil will be with us for a few decades yet. And in all likelihood, the Arctic will be a major new development area.

Where does "connect the dots" think electricity comes from? Air? Just because his sensible hybrid car generates it's own electricity (while burning gasoline) electricity for those "electric" cars is generated by coal fired plants (more than 50% of U.S. electricity is generated that way). Just as eaters of chicken and beef are divorced from the raising and slaughtering of said chickens and cows, hybrid car users are just as divorced from the reality of the source of their "clean" electricity (gasoline).

One liter of used motor oil will not turn an entire square mile into a toxic waste site. You far overstate the case. One liter into just one square km amounts to one ml. per thousand square meters. That's one drop of oil per 25-by-40 meter plot. Oil simply isn't that toxic.

Drilling on the summit of Everest, again, is a hyperbolic comparison. It is, of course, far colder on the summit of Everest. Add to that the difficulty of working in atmosphere too thin for human survival beyond a matter of hours if that, and the inaccessibility of the terrain, and you have an effectively impossible task. It would be, to argue in your style, easier to drill for oil on Mars.

Adam Smith's invisible hand will communicate the truth of whether it is easier to ride a bicycle, or spend what it takes to get at that oil.

The invisible hand will not communicate the truth of whether the tragedy-of-the-commons price of that oil is also counted. Where shall we put the resulting CO2? What will become of us as the warming continues? These are questions which must be faced squarely, not with chicken-little arguments about the commercial impossibility of getting at the oil.

No, it isn't. It is spelled "liter" in our neck of the woods. We have legal claim to the Arctic, you don't. So, keep your version of the spelling of "liter" away from our Arctic; even if it is CAPITALIZED, we are not impressed...